Americans get an 'F' in religion

Religion News Blog ^ | 03/07/2007 | Cathy Lynn Grossman

[Sopater]

Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans can’t name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50% of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, isn’t laughing. Americans’ deep ignorance of world religions — their own, their neighbors’ or the combatants in Iraq, Darfur or Kashmir — is dangerous, he says.

His new book, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — and Doesn’t, argues that everyone needs to grasp Bible basics, as well as the core beliefs, stories, symbols and heroes of other faiths.

Belief is not his business, says Prothero, who grew up Episcopalian and now says he’s a spiritually “confused Christian.” He says his argument is for empowered citizenship.

“More and more of our national and international questions are religiously inflected,” he says, citing President Bush’s speeches laden with biblical references and the furor when the first Muslim member of Congress chose to be sworn in with his right hand on Thomas Jefferson’s Quran.

“If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they’re both Muslim, and you’ve been told Islam is about peace, you won’t understand what’s happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible or the Quran, do you know it’s so?

“If you want to be involved, you need to know what they’re saying. We’re doomed if we don’t understand what motivates the beliefs and behaviors of the rest of the world. We can’t outsource this to demagogues, pundits and preachers with a political agenda.”

Scholars and theologians who agree with him say Americans’ woeful level of religious illiteracy damages more than democracy.

“You’re going to make assumptions about people out of ignorance, and they’re going to make assumptions about you,” says Philip Goff of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University in Indianapolis.

Goff cites a widely circulated claim on the Internet that the Quran foretold American intervention in the Middle East, based on a supposed passage “that simply isn’t there. It’s an entire argument for war based on religious ignorance.”

“We’re impoverished by ignorance,” says the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches. “You can’t draw on the resources of faith if you only have an emotional understanding, not a sense of the texts and teachings.”

But if people don’t know Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities destroyed for their sinful ways, Campbell blames Sunday schools that “trivialized religious education. If we want people to have serious knowledge, we have to get serious about teaching our own faith.”

Prothero’s solution is to require middle-schoolers to take a course in world religions and high schoolers to take one on the Bible. Biblical knowledge also should be melded into history and literature courses where relevant. He wants all college undergrads to take at least one course in religious studies.

He calls for time-pressed adults to sample holy books and history texts. His book includes a 90-page dictionary of key words and concepts from Abraham to Zen. There’s also a 15-question quiz — which his students fail every year.

But it’s the controversial, though constitutional, push into schools that draws the most attention.

In theory, everyone favors children knowing more. The National Education Association handbook says religious instruction “in doctrines and practices belongs at home or religious institutions,” while schools should teach world religions’ history, heritage, diversity and influence.

Only 8% of public high schools offer an elective Bible course, according to a study in 2005 by the Bible Literacy Project, which promotes academic Bible study in public schools. The project is supported by Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, a Washington, D.C., non-profit that promotes free speech.

The study surveyed 1,000 high schoolers and found that just 36% know Ramadan is the Islamic holy month; 17% said it was the Jewish day of atonement.

Goff says schools are not wholly to blame for religious illiteracy. “There are simply more groups, more players. Students didn’t know Ramadan any better in 1965, but now there are as many Muslims as Jews in America. It’s more important to know who’s who.”

Also today, “there is more emphasis on religious experience as a mark of true religion and less emphasis on doctrine and knowledge of the faith.”

Still, it’s the widely misunderstood 1963 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that may have been the tipping point: It removed devotional Bible reading from the schools but spelled out that it should not have been removed from literature and history.

“The decision clearly states you can’t be educated without it, but it scared schools so much they dropped it all,” Goff says.

“Schools are terrified of this,” says Joy Hakim, author of several U.S. history textbooks. She’s in her 70s but remembers well as a Jewish child how she felt like an outsider in schools that pushed Christianity in the curriculum.

But she says the backlash went too far. “Now, you can’t use biblical characters or narrative in anything. We’ve stopped teaching stories. We teach facts, and the characters are lost.”

Religion, like the arts, has become an afterthought in an education climate driven by “the fixation on literacy and numeracy — math and reading,” says Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a group critical of the standards-based education movement. “If the ways schools, teachers, principals and superintendents are judged all depend on math and reading scores, that’s what you’re going to teach,” he says.

Still, it’s a tough tightrope to walk between those who say the Bible can be just another book, albeit a valuable one, and those who say it is inherently devotional.

The First Amendment Center also published a guide to “The Bible and the Public Schools,” which praised a ninth-grade world religions course in Modesto, Calif., and cited a study finding students were able to learn about other faiths without altering their own beliefs. But it also said the class may not be easily replicated and required knowledgeable, unbiased teachers.

Leland Ryken, an English professor at evangelical Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., tested a 2006 textbook, The Bible and Its Influence, underwritten by the Bible Literacy Project. Ryken favors adding classes in the Bible and literature and social studies. But he cautions, “Religious literacy and world religions are not the same as the Bible as literature. It’s a much more loaded subject, and I really question if high school students can get much knowledge beyond a sense of the importance of religion.”

The Bible and Its Influence has been blasted by conservative Christians such as the Rev. John Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. Hagee calls it “a masterful work of deception, distortion and outright falsehoods” planting “concepts in the minds of children which are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Hagee wrote to the Alabama legislature opposing adoption of the text, citing points such as discussion questions that could lead children away from a belief in God. Example: Asking students to ponder if Adam and Eve got “a fair deal as described in Genesis” would plant the seed that “since God is the author of the deal, God is unfair.”

Hagee prefers the Bible itself as a textbook for Bible classes, used with a curriculum created by a group of conservative evangelicals, the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, based in Greensboro, N.C. The council says its curriculum is being offered in more than 300 schools.

Mark Chancey, professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, looked last year at how Texas public school districts taught Bible classes. His two studies, sponsored by the Texas Freedom Network, a civil liberties group, found only 25 of more than 1,000 districts offered such a class.

“And 22 of them, including several using the Greensboro group’s curriculum, were clearly over the line,” teaching Christianity as the norm, and the Bible as inspired by God, says Chancey. One teacher even showed students a proselytizing Power Point titled, “God’s road map for your life” that was clearly unconstitutional, he says.

The controversies, costs and competing demands in the schools have prompted many to turn instead to character education.

But classes promoting pluralism and tolerance fail on the religious literacy front because they “reduce religion to morality,” Prothero says, or they promote a call for universal compassion as if it were the only value that matters.

“We are not all on the same one path to the same one God,” he says. “Religions aren’t all saying the same thing. That’s presumptuous and wrong. They start with different problems, solve the problems in different ways, and they have different goals.”

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it? -- Ben Franklin

---

I am impelled to write you concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I understand that there are many Christians in America who give their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this: "everybody is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways. You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.

But American Christians, I must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." Or, as I said to the Phillipian Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven." This means that although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God, and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (from his St. Paul's letter to America speech)

[highball]

Religion, like the arts, has become an afterthought in an education climate driven by “the fixation on literacy and numeracy — math and reading,”

An education lacking in the classics is unworthy of the name. One cannot be a well-rounded adult without them.

That having been said, where are these kids' parents?

[Hi Heels]

“confused Christian.”

Yes, isn't just EVERYONE a confused Christian now days..../sarc

[TommyDale]

Since the "Purpose Driven" Movement, the Ten Commandments are now known as the "few suggestions".

[Sopater]

Related story: Georgia Close to Approving Bible Classes in Public Schools

This would be a good start, but in teaching the Bible as literature, I'm sure the school systems will also teach it as myth.

[Salvation]

If Americans get a failing grade, I wonder what the rest of the world gets?

[dan1123]

Since the "Purpose Driven" Movement, the Ten Commandments are now known as the "few suggestions".

Wow. The ACLU brings lawsuits against any mention of Jesus in schools or public displays of Christianity. People for the Separation of Church and State go after every public Christian expression (while leaving other religions alone for some reason). Popular media denigrates Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike. And you blame Biblical illiteracy on a recent evangelism movement?

[dan1123]

I think Bible as literature classes in schools should be supported by all Christians. I have found most people who are hostile to Christianity have worse than zero Bible knowledge. They have popular misconceptions of the Bible as their only Biblical knowledge.

[Between the Lines]

Hollywood is the Main Reason Why Americans Get an F For Religion Cites Christian Filmmaker

[BritExPatInFla]

This would be a good start, but in teaching the Bible as literature, I'm sure the school systems will also teach it as myth.

Some people actually see it as that, which is their right to believe or not. That's why the schools have no business in teaching it. That's the parents' or churches' job.

[Stone Mountain]

This would be a good start, but in teaching the Bible as literature, I'm sure the school systems will also teach it as myth.

You would rather the school system teach a particular version of religion as fact?

[Sopater]

Some people actually see it as that, which is their right to believe or not.

Correct, but it's no better to teach it as myth than it is to teach it as fact. If it's a "Bible as Literature" class, then just teach it as literature. Teachers should leave their opinions at the door.

[dan1123]

That's why the schools have no business in teaching it. That's the parents' or churches' job.

So Biblical literacy basics that are alluded to in much of western literature is unimportant for schools to teach? Or are you proposing that atheist and agnostic parents teach Biblical literacy to their children?

I don't even see a problem with asking whether Adam and Eve got a fair deal as in the objection in the article. If they just teach the book with similarly to the works of Sophocles, Mark Twain, or Arthur Miller, then it would be a huge improvement to the current state of affairs.

[Sopater]

You would rather the school system teach a particular version of religion as fact?

See post 13

[TommyDale]

"And you blame Biblical illiteracy on a recent evangelism movement?"

No, that is ridiculous. These new movements have compromised Christianity to the point where no one even knows the difference! Their theme is to "make the church appear as the world, so the world will come to the church" instead of separating themselves FROM the world and letting God bring the people in.

[Between the Lines]

Here is an article about how our local school district is doing Bible classes:

S.C. clears way for religion courses

[Stone Mountain]

Correct, but it's no better to teach it as myth than it is to teach it as fact.

I disagree. Treating any religious text as fact is ridiculous in (non-religious) schools. Most Christians don't even believe in a completely literal translation of the bible and that everything in it is fact. Stories evolve, translations alter and memories fade. The bible should be treated as a book that is greatly significant to a large percentage of the population and important because of that. But not as a textbook that states facts.

[dan1123]

"separating themselves FROM the world and letting God bring the people in."

You're not too big on evangelism are you?

[TommyDale]

Actually I'm quite large on it. Just not in the phony stuff you see on TV or read about in a Rick Warren book.

[Sopater]

Treating any religious text as fact is ridiculous

Uhm, yeah... that's what I said... I said that teaching it as myth is no better.

[dan1123]

"Here is an article about how our local school district is doing Bible classes:"

So after Bible teachers got kicked out of schools, the community had to set up a separate classroom location and a bus for transportation to get around a court ruling that is probably unconstitutional under the free exercise clause to begin with.

[BritExPatInFla]

Do you honestly envision that the bible will be taught simply on it's literary merits or lack thereof? And what version should be used? This opens a whole can of worms, that is simply a thinly veiled attempt to get the bible in the front door of the school, and then expand it's use in the curriculim. The teaching of the bible is best left to parents and clergy, not secular schools.

[Between the Lines]

So after Bible teachers got kicked out of schools, the community had to set up a separate classroom location and a bus for transportation to get around a court ruling that is probably unconstitutional under the free exercise clause to begin with.

There was no court ruling, only a complaint to the school board stopped the classes. The classes continue today as they have for over 50 years, the only difference is they are no longer held on school property. The Bible classes were never funded by tax dollars even when they were held on in school facilities. And the practice is not unconstitutional.

The practice is called "release time." Parents grant permission for their children to be "released" during school for privately run courses. The concept was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1952 as permissible, as long as classes are off campus, no public funding goes into the program and participation is voluntary.

Release time is used by nearly every school district in South Carolina. It is used for a wide range of subjects ranging from religion like Bible, Torah and Koran classes to academics like advanced classes to athletics like Tai Kwon Do ,karate and gymnastics classes.

[Stone Mountain]

I said that teaching it as myth is no better.

I think that for a lot of stories, you have to make the choice. Was there a flood a few thousand years ago that killed off almost everyone? Did Moses actually part the Red Sea or see a burning bush that didn't extinguish itself? Sorry, I think most people view those as myth. Are they part of a larger structure that may impart larger lessons? Possibly, and that should be explored. But again, the bible shouldn't be used as a textbook - it's a book of old stories that many people consider to be relevent to themselves today. If you are going to teach the bible as literature, one of things you do is to look at myths from other religions and cultures and see how they compare to myths in Christianity. For instance, most cultures have a "great flood that destroyed the world" myth that are similar to eachother. Is that proof that there was a flood that destroyed the world? No - most early civilizations lived near water, and pretty much any large body of water will have a large flood at some point. One has to acknowledge that there is no reason to believe that the Christian flood story is any less mythical as any other religious flood story, if one wants to be even-handed in teaching a subject like this. So, yes, I do believe that treating biblical stories as myth is better than teaching them as fact. This doesn't mean that the teacher has to say that God is a myth, or that Christianity is wrong. But he should treat the text like he would any other non-Christian religious text in terms of truth value.

[Sopater]

Sorry, I think most people view those as myth.

[snip]

This doesn't mean that the teacher has to say that God is a myth, or that Christianity is wrong.

Only that the God of the Bible is a myth since the things that it says that He did is a myth. Right?

One has to acknowledge that there is no reason to believe that the Christian flood story is any less mythical as any other religious flood story, if one wants to be even-handed in teaching a subject like this.

There are many reasons to believe that the Christian flood story is less mythical than any other religious flood story. The Bible is full of prophecy that testifies to it's own truth. To call the stories of the Bible a "myth" is to call the author of those stories either "misinformed" or a "liar". No other religion has a documented record that comes remotely close to that of the Bible.

[Stone Mountain]

Only that the God of the Bible is a myth since the things that it says that He did is a myth. Right?

I'm not sure I understand the distinction. God can certainly be responsible for biblical myths that teach us something, right?

There are many reasons to believe that the Christian flood story is less mythical than any other religious flood story.

Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. There are numerous scientific problems that don't get resolved if you believe the entire earth was flooded with water. If you are saying that science doesn't matter because it was a miracle, then we're back to the Christian flood story being basically like any other religious flood story. If you believe that everything in the bible is literally true, and that there are no myths in there, that's another thing we would have to agree to disagree on. I don't believe that, nor do I believe such should be taught in public schools.

[Sopater]

I'll agree to disagree, however I don't think that "faith" or "ideology" should be taught by public school teachers, no matter what side of the fence that you're on, no matter how many people believe the same way. Granted, this leaves the door open for children to be indoctrinated from other sources without counter arguments from school teachers, but it also leaves the door open for parents and churches to instill a moral foundation in their children without the public school system (gov't) working to dismantle it.

BTW, I am not saying that science doesn't matter. I am a firm believer in physical science and believe that all of the scientific evidence supports the truth in regards to origins of life and the universe. However, I don't support pseudo-science being used to advance an ideological agenda and then calling it science. The idea that somehow science and religion are at odds is absurd. There are ideologies that are at odds, but one is falsely called science in today's culture.

[Stone Mountain]

The idea that somehow science and religion are at odds is absurd.

This is true. However, the idea that science is at odds with a literal reading of the bible is clearly not absurd.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

“the fixation on literacy and numeracy — math and reading,” says Bob Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, a group critical of the standards-based education movement.

"We would rather see these kids playing with play-dough while listening to a storyteller then actually learning skills that will allow them to continue to learn." He continued. "After all if they can actually read and do math then how are we going to turn them into mindless drones to do our labor?"

Idiot.

[Sopater]

the idea that science is at odds with a literal reading of the bible is clearly not absurd.

This too is true. However the idea that there is a significant number of fundamentalist Christians who actually believe that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally is just as absurd. ;-)

[Stone Mountain]

This too is true. However the idea that there is a significant number of fundamentalist Christians who actually believe that everything in the Bible is to be taken literally is just as absurd. ;-)

Actually, I do believe there are a fair amount of bible literalists out there - even on this site, for that matter. But I agree with you - most Christians don't believe in a literal reading of the events in the bible. Which is another reason why I don't think it's a big deal if the stories in the bible are taught as myth as opposed to calling them fact.

[Sopater]

most Christians don't believe in a literal reading of the events in the bible.

I'm not talking about the events of the Bible. The Bible clearly describes some events as literal fact, and some as allegory. I believe in a straight-forward reading of the Bible. I believe in the creation story, the global flood, the parting of the Red Sea, etc. However, people who say that I take everything that the Bile says literally are trying to say that I also think that the obvious allegories of the Bible are also facts. This is an attempt to smear and discredit me and other fundamentalist Christians by painting us as mindless idiots. The Bible is relatively clear on what is to be considered as fact and what is to be considered as allegory.

[TommyDale]

"Popular media denigrates Christians, Protestant and Catholic alike. And you blame Biblical illiteracy on a recent evangelism movement?"

Actually, Biblical illiteracy is what allowed the Purpose Driven Movement to begin with. Church leadership has no discernment for the false doctrine that they bring in to undermine solid Bible teaching.

[VictoryGal]

I scored a 96 out of 100, but then I went to a Catholic school and took a comparitive religions class.

In this crazy world, it is suicide not to teach our children our base beliefs as well as the core beliefs people hold in the world, political correctness be danged.

I don't trust our public schools to do this, but someone must. Let's start at home, at the very very least.

[Larry Lucido]

I scored a 96 out of 100

Okay, I looked all over the article for a test. Is there a hidden link? (Or did I already flunk the test? LOL)

[Zionist Conspirator]

People for the Separation of Church and State go after every public Christian expression (while leaving other religions alone for some reason).

Liberals divide the population of America into two groups: "guests" and "hosts." In American chr*stians are the "hosts" and non-chr*stians (no matter how fundamentalistic their beliefs) are "guests." Secularism then becomes a war, not on religion per se, but on the religion of the "hosts," since the free and even subsidized expression of the religions of the "guests" is interpreted as secularizing.

As a non-chr*stian myself I find this very embarrassing.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I think Bible as literature classes in schools should be supported by all Christians. I have found most people who are hostile to Christianity have worse than zero Bible knowledge. They have popular misconceptions of the Bible as their only Biblical knowledge.

Would captive students in the public schools be taught the blasphemous documentary hypothesis, or that the Bible is mere "literature" or "mythology?" I am adamantly opposed to any such thing.

Religious Truth is no less true than anay other kind. It is not speculative or subjective and it deserves to be taught as fact.

[VictoryGal]

Oops! You didn't miss the quiz-- I had gone to the original usatoday article before coming on to FR and seeing the post:

http://usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-03-07-teaching-religion-cover_N.htm

Look on the left for the questions. Take your points and multiply by 2...

[Larry Lucido]

Thanks!

(Back later to take it).

[Larry Lucido]

Okay, had to take a pass on the Buddhism question. Apparently I guessed right on the Hindu question even though I chose a text used by the Hara Krishnas. (At least I spelled it right and didn't call it the "Innagoddada-vida" LOL!)

And, fortunately, I read the thread yesterday on the various versions of the Ten Commandments so I would have gotten it right even if I ended up with 9, 10 or 11.

[Borges]

The King James Bible is such a gargantuan influence on English prose that it has to be taught as Literature in an English class which shouldn't address veracity one way or the other. The rest is up to religious instruction at home.

[Zionist Conspirator]

The King James Bible is such a gargantuan influence on English prose that it has to be taught as Literature in an English class which shouldn't address veracity one way or the other. The rest is up to religious instruction at home.

The notion that religion is "private" is based on the enlightenment idea that all religion is subjective rather than objective, and is the product of philosophical speculation rather than objective Divine Revelation. In ancient Israel you may be sure there was absolutely no separation of religion from the state, nor will there be in the Messianic future.

It's one thing to teach the KJV for its language, quite another to teach the "documentary hypothesis" or to tell the captive audience that it's all bunk.

[Borges]

In ancient Israel you may be sure there was absolutely no separation of religion from the state, nor will there be in the Messianic future.

But there is here and now. :-) And it's not the job of any English teacher to debunk the historical veracity of anything.

[Zionist Conspirator]

But there is here and now. :-)

G-d's Laws apply here and now as well.

And it's not the job of any English teacher to debunk the historical veracity of anything.

No, but they'll do it.

[PJ-Comix]

The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen... Oy! Ten! Ten commandments for all to obey!